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Wednesday, January 16, 2019
REUTERS
With explosives and machine guns, Islamic assassins attack a luxury hotel in the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, in broad daylight. The battle lasts almost 20 hours. In the end, five strikers and 21 civilians died.
Sad record after a night of horror: in Kenya, an Islamist attack on a hotel complex in the capital Nairobi ended in the morning with 21 dead. "All terrorists have been eliminated," Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told a news conference. According to police chief Joseph Boinnet, all five attackers were also killed in the attack claimed by the Shebab Islamist militia.
President Kenyatta declared the attack after about 20 hours. Initially he had spoken of 14 deaths, according to police chief Boinnet, subsequent losses increased to 21 deaths. According to police representatives, several foreigners were among the victims. The US State Department confirmed that one of those killed was a US citizen. A mortician said that at least eleven Kenyans and an Englishman were among the victims.
A total of 700 civilians were rescued from the compound during the entire duration of the attack, which included a hotel, apartments, restaurants, as well as shops and offices of international companies, said Kenyatta.
The attack started Tuesday afternoon (1.00pm CET). According to the police, there was an explosion in a parking lot, at the same time he blew a suicide bomber in the foyer of the DusitD2 hotel in the air. The armed forces then entrenched themselves in the building. As explosions and blows shook the complex of buildings in the elegant Westland, many employees hid under their desks. People crowded in the bathrooms or lowered in their cars, some during the night.
Islamists call moving the US embassy as a reason for attack
"There were five terrorists and they all went," police chief Boinnet said. The building complex is systematically crossed, the miners were looking for unexploded explosives.
Local media showed footage of surveillance cameras in which four men armed with a black weapon enter the building complex. The police reported that a man had blown up, the other four had been killed Tuesday night or Wednesday morning after a long exchange of fire with the security forces. Two of the attackers wore the red veil and had belts with several magazines tied around the chest, a police representative said. Everyone brought a Kalashnikov.
The Islamist militia of Shebab claimed responsibility for the attack, citing the transfer of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The al-Qaida terrorist group has repeatedly carried out attacks in Kenya in the past. In an attack on the Westgate shopping center, a few miles from the Dusit complex, in 2013 at least 67 people were killed.
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